Classic Radio of 20 Years Into The Future.

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I have a friend who honestly believes that no decent music was made post 1983. He still listens to modern radio, but mainly to mock the callers into Tim Westwood's show. However, obviously, he prefers the local oldies station, in this case Classic Gold 1557. It's a half-decent station, but the point is, you can set your watch by the sort of music they play (The Foundations, Chic, 10CC, Don McLean, etc etc etc).

So, we got talking. What's going to be playing on the oldies station 10, 15, 20 years down the line? We came up with:

Del Amitri (obviously)
U2
Basement Jaxx (fulfilling the Chic role)

Any other ideas?

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

New "All the hits, all the time" answers, please.

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

U2 is a natural, but I can't see Del Amitri being played in 20 years...at least here in North America. In 20 years time I think you'll see these as classix on classic rawk radio: Sheryl Crow, Sarah Mclachlan, Nirvana (plus imitators like Bush or Stone Temple Fuckups), Madonna, Creed, Alanis, Stink...er, Sting, and well, any of the really BIG artists of today and recent vintage. And you know what? I won't want to listen to the oldies station of the future any more than I would want to listen to one now, even though some of today's oldies are also some of my own.

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Great topic Massive Attack Pearl Jam Nirvana REM

― MICHELINE, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I was having this same conversation with a friend yesterday. We were wonding if rap is he mondern day doo-wop in terms of future oldies. But we decided that most of it's too obscene for old people. People mellow out as they get old. But then I mentioned Lucille Bogan /Bessie Jackson whose much more obscene then most rap, but she isn't really oldies type music.

― A Nairn, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Locks for classic rock radio are already being given to us via "modern rock" radio. This subtle change was made right under our noses in the early nineties when pop radio stations decided it was OK to start playing "gritty" guitar rock during hours when people are actually awake. That kind of change will not be undone very easily -- legions of middle-aged white guys will still be demanding their fix in 20 years.

Anyway, bands like Creed, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Lenny Kravitz, Limp Bizkit, Greenday, Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, Dave Matthews Band, U2, REM, Blink 182, Tool, Oasis, Weezer and Metallica are already so primed for "classic rock" radio that it's not even funny.

― dleone, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

in 20 years= Grunge, nu-'punk' and this limp Bizkit type stuff.

If I get near any of those stations in 20 years time then please please please shoot me. Thanks!

― Julio Desouza, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In 20 years time I think you'll see these as classix on classic rawk radio: Sheryl Crow, Sarah Mclachlan, Nirvana (plus imitators like Bush or Stone Temple Fuckups), Madonna, Creed, Alanis, Stink...er, Sting
This is what the local "classic rock" station plays NOW (in between Boston, Zeppelin and Elton John, that is.)

― Lord Custos 2.0 beta, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Proof that nostalgia spirals in on itself in ever-tightening circles.

― Sean Carruthers, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Last year I was in Sweden for a weekend and they had a morning radio station playing 80s disco and synth pop. It just kind of went Donna Summer, 5 Star, Colonel Abrahams, Eurithmics etc.

Actaully, hopefully, internet radio will have killed Oldies Radio stations and their "mass audience for bland music" equation and we'll all be listening to personalized narrowcasts of quirky and experimental stuff we like.

― phil, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Not likely. The RIAA has made great strides in murdering online music streaming.

― Lord Custos 2.0 beta, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

maybe turn the question on its head: what then-reasonably-popular music of 20 yrs ago — or 30 or 40 — *never* gets played now? (ie i don't mean borbetomagus)

― mark s, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Where I am, it seems most popular music from the last 40 or so years is covered on the radio:
we have classic rock (which could be Foghat, Fleetwood Mac or Rolling Stones)
"Oldies" (50s and 60s pop, mostly, from Elvis and Beatles to Englebert Humperdink)
"Jammin' Oldies" (their term, not mine -- basically, 60s-70s-80s r-n- b hits)
"AM Gold" (60s and 70s pop, along the lines of the Carpenters, Bay City Rollers and Tony Orlando).

As far as I know, we have *no* station that would play any actual punk (say, Ramones or Sex Pistols) or post-punk (I have never heard a Joy Division song on the radio), though they do play "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go" sometimes on the classic rock station.

― dleone, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In 20 years it will sound exactly the same is it does now. I mean, honestly, have you really heard "Spirit in the Sky" enough?

― Yancey, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

haha the clash just ran over my dog AGAIN!!

ok what abt, oh, evelyn king/the commodores/earth wind and fire-type stuff?

― mark s, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ok what abt, oh, evelyn king/the commodores/earth wind and fire- type stuff?

"Jammin' oldies" plays all of that stuff. They go from Supremes to Barry White to Earth, Wind & Fire to Shalamar. Actually, given that, I guess they should be one of the most ambitious stations going, except they tend to focus on the same hits over and over during peak listening hours -- I don't really ever need to hear "I Will Survive" again.

― dleone, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The rock-antidote "light strings" and subsequent Herb-Alpertastic instrumental genre seem to have fallen off the map completely. Is there an equiv to this genre today, i.e. something that plays the same soothing role (I think maybe it is "oldies"!)

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic Radio of 20 years into the Future

(I wish)

― Tom, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Is there an equiv to this genre today, i.e. something that plays the same soothing role (I think maybe it is "oldies"!)

Yes, and it's "smooth jazz". Aka, the worst music to ever exist. Take a look at the rap sheet:

1. 100 times worse than acid jazz
2. Features soprano saxes not playing Coltrane-style freakouts
3. As a rule, the beats must be no more current than what might have passed for cool 15 years ago.
4. Even its proponents know it's bad ("I just listen to this to calm down"; "well, it's good for playing in the background"l; some other excuse to get out of talking about how bad it is).
5. Consistently misfiled in the music store under "New Age". In fact, smooth jazz is the biggest reason why a lot of stores can get away with a "Jazz/New Age" category.

― dleone, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm sort of fascinated by this subject, because it's so hard for me to imagine that many people will want to hear much of what passes for popular music these days in another five years, much less 20. I mean, on one hand it seems the very best the Vertical Horizons and Nickelbacks of the world can hope for is that they'll be the equivalent of Lobo or America in 2022--a familiar but utterly unprepossessing unguent oozing from the speakers in a shopping center somewhere. On the other hand, look at oldies radio. It's supposed to be hit music from the '60s more or less--pretty fertile territory there, right? Beatles, Stones, Aretha, psych-pop, girl groups, surf stuff, lotsa good tunes in there. So why is it mostly middling crap like Gary Lewis and the Playboys' "This Diamond Ring" and the Four Seasons, stuff that no one would even remember unless it got played on oldies for God-know-what reason. Handicap this stuff at your own peril.

― Lee G, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(B)Ryan Adams. ;-)

― cuba libre (nathalie), Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

so where wd you go for dino, or sinatra w.nelson riddle, or ella sings cole porter? are there pre-rock oldie stations? what abt ethel merman? (tracer did you mean "incredibly strnage music"/melachrino strings/tiki-type music: cuz i don't think SMOOTH JAZZ is the present-day analog of that... ambient is, kinda)

― mark s, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

from War of the Worlds:

Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the earth with enormous velocity. Professor Pierson of the Observatory at Princeton confirms Farrell's observation, and describes the phenomenon as (quote) like a jet of blue flame shot from a gun (unquote). We now return you to the music of Ramón Raquello, playing for you in the Meridian Room of the Park Plaza Hotel, situated in downtown New York.

Whence Ramón Raquello??

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

so where wd you go for dino, or sinatra w.nelson riddle, or ella sings cole porter?

You go to the television, and turn to the digital cable radio station that plays lounge/easy. As of today, we don't have a real station that specializes in this style, though we do have a community station that plays something like it on the weekends, alongside more Lawrence Welk-y kind of stuff. I would kill for Ella sings Cole Porter on the radio at all hours.

― dleone, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

is that war of the worlds by alan parsons project?

― mark s, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sorry dominique i'm not trying to catch you out, i'm just quite interested in how it works

― mark s, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sorry dominique i'm not trying to catch you out, i'm just quite interested in how it works

Oh, I know. Unfortunately, my knowledge of how it works is limited to how it sounds. And I take back the last bit about only being able to hear easy on the weekends back. There are a couple of AM stations that broadcast very golden oldies (30s, 40s mostly) all the time. Less Ella than Glen Miller though.

― dleone, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have no idea, beyond obvious suggestions like the giant sellers (U2, for instance). I am no good at these predictions, and never have been. What I do know is that if I ever start listening to any such stations with any frequency, I will have given up on life.

I know someone who reckons no good music has been made since Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison died. He is about 30 years old. Tragic.

― Martin Skidmore, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Proof that nostalgia spirals in on itself in ever-tightening circles.

One of the truest Onion articles

― Vinnie, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The rock-antidote "light strings" and subsequent Herb-Alpertastic instrumental genre seem to have fallen off the map completely.

Here in Brasilia we have Super Radio FM (pronounced "Soopa Hadio Effy Emmy") which I declare to be THE BEST EASY LISTENING RADIO STATION IN THE WORLD, EVAH! It's just solid Herb Alpert, Mantovani, orchestras etc. It goes from morning to night, plays NO vocal tracks. Has 1 advert and one news bulletin per hour. The DJs say nothing but the name of the artist and the track. And the whole thing is probably run as a pacifier by a collusion of the catholic church and the government.

In the UK, Classic FM have tried to repackage classical music in this way. Classical music is reduced to the brand "relaxing". Ugh.

Fortunately Radio 3 have reacted by going "serious" and playing everything from world music, to modern composition and electronica.

― phil, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

bubblegum? cowpunk? (abt which i cd give toss, i just like saying "cowpunk")
― mark s, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Proof that nostalgia spirals in on itself in ever-tightening circles.

One of the truest Onion articles
I've been saying for the longest time that time itself is accelerating. Rock lasted for decades. Punk lasted for years. Grunge lasted months. The lounge revival lasted less than a month. The Next Big Thing will be old hat by next tuesday.
We've gotten very good at declaring as passé those things which have not even reached the mainstream.
― Lord Custos 2.0 beta, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Begone foul Italic script!
― Lord Custos 2.0 beta, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Creed, Creed, and more Creed. And to think how sick of this we are now.
― rat, Monday, 20 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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